This speech by Premier Zapatero in the Spanish Cortes is one of the most remarkable speeches I have ever heard by a straight politician in a legal setting. This was the day same-sex marriage was legalized in Spain. I remember years later having dinner with many of the leaders of the LGBT movement in Spain and one of them said to me:
He said he would do it, and he did it. That’s why we love him
Always pretty remarkable when that happens.
I’m beat down tired, but so impressed with the trial so far in San Francisco on the Federal Challenge to Prop 8. I’ll have more to say, but let me share this with you:
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I’ve deeply moved by the strength, intelligence and passion of our former opponent on the conservative side, Mr Olson. It helps me to remember that not all conservatives are anti-human rights. And that in this case, at least one is bringing all he can for truth. I have hope at least that a cogent argument is being made. And though we may lose, the courts are not our friends, today, I cry in the joy of hearing our lives described in the mundane and common Americanism that we all represent.
via http://prop8trialtracker.com/2010/01/11/liveblogging-day-1-daily-summary/.
Yes, I am being sarcastic. To no one’s surprise the Supreme Court has stayed the order to post delayed court proceedings on youtube. The possible retribution to those bigots may be too great a burden for this once great country to bare.
This whole trial has always scared me. Yes, the facts are on our side, the Constitution is on our side, precedent is on our side, and the American Exceptionalism is on our side. Yet, the bigots hold a lot of power.
President Obama has stayed silent. The Court is stacked against us. This is not a legal issue, but a political issue in practice. Can you imagine President Obama doing what Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, or Johnson did to uphold the rule of law? The administration is already ignoring court orders to give spousal benefits to a government employee. Just ignoring it. Yikes.
I’m Mr. Grumpy today.
Coming off of a decade where up is down and down is up when it comes to the truth and conservatives, the fight over cameras in the hearing tomorrow on the Constitutionality of the Prop 8 vote also turns history on its head. For years, LGBT people have lived in the closet. There were of course many reasons for this. Many of us felt shame over a life that was vilified by our communities. But the largest part of life in the closet was fear. It certainly was for me. Fear of losing our jobs, of losing our family and friends, of violence and ridicule.
In the great Julianne Moore move “Far from Heaven,” we glimpsed scenes of the dark and frightened corners of a closeted gay man in the 50s.
My, have the times changed. Now those opposed to equality wish to make their statements in the dark, without the light of a camera recording their statements. They say that they are frightened by potential retribution for their opinions. They are ashamed and afraid. The gay men and lesbians are those fighting to speak in the full view of the public.
The federal judge has ruled for cameras in the courtroom. It is being appealed to the US Supreme Court by those opposed to equality. The question for us is does a gay person have any hope in this country for help by the courts; by the US Supreme Court in particular.
That those on the anti-marriage side have few arguments other than their God says its wrong and most people don’t like it, only demonstrates the bankruptcy of their fight. Popular hatred is not a public policy. And the light of day needs to shine on the truth.
I have spent the last two or three years as a cynic. I’ve always been a bit of a cynic, but what I am referring to here is in the classical greek sense of the word, as in pulling one apart from politics or the believe in the ability to change a system as large as the political system of the US and indeed the world. So it’s a glorious ability to throw bombs and share a hopeless sense. But it is not a something you can live with forever. My disappointment in the loss of Constitutional control of the American government under Bush, and Obama’s willingness to not prosecute and in fact set up protections for the war criminals hurt. I left the country for a year and wanted to experience a different set of values. Values I treasure. Individual rights, regulated capatalism and a robust welfare system.
Yet, I am hopeful. I think with all the disappointment I have with the political structure in the United States and its inability to sustain real change and recognize true human rights, Obama has been a vast improvement. I do believe time will help us overcome.
I saw a concert this weekend with my personal diva, Bette, in Vegas. There’s her most signature song, The Rose. It is a song of the hope of a better spring time after a difficult winter. Our winter has gone on for so long, ten years. No job growth, war crimes, cowardize around LGBT rights. Eight years of war. But the seed, with the sun’s love, comes the rose.
I’m committed to fighting and not letting politicians off the hook. But I am also committed to hope. To holding ourselves to a higher standard. I am committed to global connection and universal citizenship. I am committed to be one of many suns that will bring light and bring the spring. In my current job, I’m committed to finding ways that every LGBT person in this city can find help when they need it. Substance abuse, mental health, poverty, HIV and AIDS, and building a sense of community have been my life for the last 25 years. I am recommitted.
What can you do to bring that light. To end the winter of our discontent, to borrow a phrase. To make this city and this country what it can be.
I lived in Portland, ME for nearly 8 years. Loved the city and the people. Incredibly progressive. The outlying areas will be interesting on this issue. But the reality is Maine has always been proud of a “live and let live” philosophy.
What do you think?
As some of you have been reading my posts over the last few months know, I’ve been pretty harsh with some of the decisions and strategy of the President, particularly on the issues of health care reform and LGBT rights. It hasn’t just been the president that I’ve been critical of, it’s also been the Democratic Party in general.
I had a brief, but very interesting conversation with someone tonight about how the White House has taken on some of these issues. This guy is a smart guy, works at Harvard, and is politically astute. He suggested that things would turn out fine, that the politics of the moment meant that a very strategic president needed to reach these goals differently and with patience.
Pretty standard argument. These are hard things to do, the right will eat him up, one step at a time. Not an argument that I am prone to buy into anymore. But one thing he said did really strike me.
It’s no secret that the LGBT movement and its fight for rights does not do as well politically among people of color as it should be doing. Though I don’t buy into the Prop 8 myth that blacks caused us to lose, I do believe that we have not built the bridges that we need to build. So his point was basically this:
How does it look when white gay leaders and activists are among the most vocal critics of the first African-American president in US history?
Doesn’t it feed into an already difficult relationship? And does it mean that we can not criticize Mr. Obama?
I think it would be very difficult for anyone to deny that many of the right-wing attacks against the president and his place of birth and socialism and all the rest, does not have, in some form, a racist tone. There is a strong cord of racism in this country and in particular going back to the Palin rallies, racist attacks against President Obama.
So, I want to be more aware of how I frame my critique of the White House. I don’t want to ignore what I think are problems. But let me be more clear about what I think the genesis of many of those strategy errors are. The Democrats, including the White House, are allowing the right wing to frame every debate.
Our policy prescriptions are good ones, but we start out by being defensive about how the Republican Party will attack them. We don’t fight for our own beliefs. We have bought into the notion that progressive ideas are radical ideas. Where in reality, they are popular and workable ideas.
So, where my focus will be is in trying to get the Democrats to fight from a position of strength, to be willing to lose with your best ideas, and not water everything down out of fear of what a minority, regional party may say.
The truth is, they are willing to say anything. We should be willing to say the truth and fight for our own ideals.
Nice charts passed on by Matt Yglesias:
Second, who tells pollsters that they know someone who’s gay:
This sort of data are not new. They have been part of a process that has been happening for many years, and may infact be increasing as other social changes are taking place. For me, this leads to a longer wait. I’m in favor of 2012 wait for many reasons, which I will get more deeply into in a future post. But it is important.
Increasingly, my interest is turning more to what is next after marriage and not just hear in this country but others two. Our youth know a different world. We will do a LOT of talking about that soon.
Chris Rock in 2008 on same sex marriage:
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